3,516 research outputs found
Star Formation in Massive Low Surface Brightness Galaxies
Massive low surface brightness galaxies have disk central surface
brightnesses at least one magnitude fainter than the night sky, but total
magnitudes and masses that show they are among the largest galaxies known. Like
all low surface brightness (LSB) galaxies, massive LSB galaxies are often in
the midst of star formation yet their stellar light has remained diffuse,
raising the question of how star formation is proceeding within these galaxies.
We have undertaken a multi-wavelength study to clarify the structural
parameters and stellar and gas content of these enigmatic systems. The results
of these studies, which include HI, CO, optical, near UV, and far UV images of
the galaxies will provide the most in depth study done to date of how, when,
and where star formation proceeds within this unique subset of the galaxy
population.Comment: to be published in proceeding of IAU 244 - Dark Galaxies and Lost
Baryons IAU Symposiu
The z<=0.1 Surface Brightness Distribution
The surface brightness distribution (SBD) function describes the number
density of galaxies as measured against their central surface brightness.
Because detecting galaxies with low central surface brightnesses is both
time-consuming and complicated, determining the shape of this distribution
function can be difficult. In a recent paper Cross, et al. suggested a
bell-shaped SBD disk-galaxy function which peaks near the canonical Freeman
value of 21.7 and then falls off significantly by 23.5 B mag arcsec-2. This is
in contradiction to previous studies which have typically found flat (slope=0)
SBD functions out to 24 - 25 B mag arcsec^-2 (the survey limits). Here we take
advantage of a recent surface-brightness limited survey by Andreon & Cuillandre
which reaches considerably fainter magnitudes than the Cross, et.al sample (M_B
reaches fainter than -12 for Andreon & Cuillandre while the Cross, et.al sample
is limited to M_B < -16) to re-evaluate both the SBD function as found by their
data and the SBD for a wide variety of galaxy surveys, including the Cross, et
al. data. The result is a SBD function with a flat slope out through the survey
limits of 24.5 B mag arcsec^-2, with high confidence limits.Comment: 5 pages including 5 figures. accepted by A&A
Completing HI observations of galaxies II. The Coma Supercluster
High sensitivity 21-cm HI line observations, with an rms noise level of \sim
0.5 mJy, were made of 35 spiral galaxies in the Coma Supercluster, using the
refurbished Arecibo telescope, which resulted in the detection of 25 objects.
These data, combined with the measurements available from the literature,
provide the set of HI data for 94% of all late-type galaxies in the Coma
Supercluster with an apparent photographic magnitude m_p <15.7 mag. We confirm
that the typical scale of HI deficiency around the Coma cluster is 2 Mpc, i.e.
one virial radius. Comparing the HI mass function (HIMF) of cluster with
non-cluster members of the Coma Supercluster we detect a shortage of high HI
mass galaxies among cluster members that can be ascribed to the pattern of HI
deficiency found in rich clusters.Comment: 16 pages, 8 figures, 4 tables. Accepted for publication on A&
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